Monday, January 25, 2010
Protecting online freedom
THE recent exchange of harsh words between Washington and Beijing highlights a major concern for Internet users all over the world. How this debate plays out in their own countries will determine how free individuals are to express themselves online.
Posted by Chin on 01/25 at 04:14 PM
E-government • Education • News • Security and Privacy • (1) Comments • Permalink
E-government • Education • News • Security and Privacy • (1) Comments • Permalink
TWO years after I started writing it, Reporting on ICT is finally off the press. Published by the Konrad Adenauer Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University, the textbook is aimed at helping practicing journalists who want to report on technology. The 211-page volume includes a short history of the computer industry, an explanation of basic terms, and a discussion of major issues that affect the industry. Aside from the huge psychic reward that completing this project brought, Reporting on ICT also financed my first Mac, a G4 iBook that I eventually traded in, months before the book rolled off the press.
THE One Laptop per Child project had hoped to persuade governments in developing countries to buy millions of XOs and hand them out as educational tools, but that has not happened in a big way for a number of reasons. What’s more, products such as the Classmate PC and the Asus Eee PC—a Linux machine with a less cryptic interface—compete for much the same educational market, so it is far from certain that the XO will lead the revolution Negroponte envisioned.
WORDS stream out in torrents when Gus Vibal, founder of WikiPilipinas, explains why he set up a free online encyclopedia about all things Filipino. “We want to turn WikiPilipinas into the biggest writing project in the Philippines,” Vibal says from the booth of Vibal Publishing at the Manila International Book Fair, where the Web site was launched. Vibal acknowledges there’s a fair amount of duplication in content with Wikipedia. In fact, WikiPilipinas has copied or adapted some 15,000 articles—as it is allowed to do—from the popular open source encyclopedia. But Vibal believes there’s value in gathering all Filipino-related content under one site.
IN the sitcom 30 Rock, the abrasive network boss Jack Donaghy buys a pager because he wants to make a point to his subordinate, Liz Lemon, who is dating the only beeper salesman left in Manhattan. “Okay, very funny. You bought a pager from Dennis. Will you take it off now please?” she says. “Oh I can’t,” he replies smugly. “I’m expecting a call from 1983.” When the latest results of 2007 E-Readiness Ranking by the Economist Intelligence Unit came out recently, it certainly felt like we were waiting for a call from 1983.
WHO stops schools and other institutions from using Ubuntu and other open source software? The naivete of the question from one of my readers surprised me. A group calling itself the Initiative for Software Choice has been lobbying against open source since May 2002. Its biggest backer, CNet reports, is Microsoft. Software Choice is one of those misnomers like the Patriot Act in the United States, which cloaks the blatant violation of civil liberties behind a fancy name, or the Clear Skies Initiative, which actually weakens existing air pollution standards.
SEPT. 4, 2006 (MST) ---DESPITE the lack of a state policy on free and open source software, a number of government agencies have made inroads in promoting its use in schools, a top information technology official said last week. In a paper delivered at an academic forum Thursday, Emmanuel Lallana, a commissioner of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology said efforts to promote free and open source software in education have focused on three aspects: 1) getting more people to use it; 2) developing content and electronic learning applications using the technology; and 3) developing experts who can support its wider use.
TWO professors at the University of Minnesota are using Neverwinter Nights, a role-playing game from BioWare to teach journalism skills. Profs. Kathleen Hansen of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Nora Paul, the director of SJMC’s Institute for New Media Studies used the game-building toolset bundled with NWN to modify the game for their purposes.
